Enterprise management systems (EM systems) are being used to centrally manage heterogeneous devices and applications deployed in enterprise networks. FIG. 1 illustrates the basic architecture of an EM system 10. At a high level, the system 10 includes a management server 12a connected over a network to various managed devices 11 on which various software applications are deployed. More specifically, the system includes one or more managed devices 11 connected over a network to least one server 12a for managing devices 11. Management agents installed and executing on the managed devices 11 perform monitoring of the managed devices. The agents collect monitoring data which is provided to management server 12a for aggregation. Management server 12a stores monitoring data collected from the managed devices 11 in management repository 12b. Management server 12a also provides a user-interface for viewing data in the management repository 12b to enable a system administrator to check the status of managed devices 11. In addition, the management server 12a communicates with agents on the managed devices 11 for the purpose of affecting changes in configuration of software applications installed and executing on devices 11. Such changes are initiated by the system administrator through the user-interface of management server 12a. 
EM systems may provide the ability for a system administrator to view many individual metrics for various hardware and software system components deployed in an enterprise network. For example, a typical EM system provides the ability for a system administrator to determine the utilization of a central processing unit (CPU) of a particular managed device. As another example, a typical enterprise management system provides the ability to determine the average amount of time taken by a particular software application to authenticate users logging on to the application.
In addition to providing the ability to view metrics, EM systems may provide the ability to generate alerts when a metric exceeds or falls below a pre-defined threshold. For example, an EM system may generate an alert in the form an electronic message (e-mail) or offline report to a system administrator when the amount of available non-volatile storage space on a particular managed device falls below a pre-defined amount. Thus, EM systems may provide low-level monitoring and management capabilities geared toward system administrators. These systems allow administrators to manage and monitor the information technology infrastructure of an enterprise at the level of individual system components. For example, if the system administrator receives an alert that available non-volatile storage space on a particular managed device is running low, the administrator can take appropriate remedial action such as replacing the storage device with a larger capacity storage device or removing unwanted data from the existing storage device to free up available storage space.
While some EM systems are useful for troubleshooting individual system components in an enterprise network, such systems provide limited to no ability to determine how the performance of any individual system component is related to or dependent on the performance of other system components. More generally, such systems provided limited to no ability to determine how the performance of a key organizational process of the enterprise is related to or dependent on the performance of individual system components in the enterprise network. For example, in response to receiving an alert that a particular storage device is running out of available storage space, some EM systems do not provide an integrated way for the system administrator to determine what deployed software applications depend on the particular storage device. If there are mission-critical software applications that depend on the particular storage device, then it may not be appropriate for the system administrator to remedy the low storage space alert by taking the storage device “off-line” in order to replace the storage device. Instead, another remedy which minimizes the downtime of the dependent software applications is more appropriate. With some EM systems, the system administrator may be required to perform a lengthy investigation to determine what software applications depend on a particular system component before taking any remedial action. This is inefficient for the enterprise.
Another deficiency of some EM systems is that they provide limited to no ability to determine what information technology system components support a particular organizational process. For example, a company that manufactures and sells widgets may use an order processing software application to enter orders for widgets received over the telephone by customer service representatives. The order processing application may provide, for example, an average order processing time metric that measures the average amount of time between initiating entry of a new order and the completing entry of the order. Such a metric may depend on a variety of factors including human resource factors and information technology factors. Often it is a front-line organizational manager, and not a system administrator, that is first to notice when an organizational metric trends or moves in an undesirable direction (e.g., average order processing time suddenly increases). However, some EM systems provide limited to no ability to determine what system components in the enterprise network support the organizational process. Thus, with some EM systems, the front-line manager cannot easily determine whether the undesirable trend in the organizational metric is caused by a problem with system components on which the organizational process depends. For example, the increase in average order processing time may be caused by the order database being overloaded with order entry requests. With some EM systems, the front-line manager may be required, perhaps in cooperation with information technology specialists, to perform an extensive investigation to determine which system components support the organizational process and whether those system components are the cause of the degradation in the organizational metric. This is undesirable not only because it is time-consuming, but also because the front-line manager may not be able to diagnose the problem herself and instead, may require the help of typically over-burdened information technology system administrators.
Given the ever-increasing reliance by organizations on information technology to support their organizational processes, there is much interest in improving the visibility of organizational dependencies on information technology system components deployed in enterprise networks. Accordingly, there is a need for an enterprise management system that provides improved visibility of the relationships between system components deployed in enterprise networks and that provides improved visibility of the relationships between organizational metrics and system components. Embodiments of the present invention fulfill these and other needs.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.